It’s incredible to think that @Malarkey would have needed to charge 35 quid a ride in order to be able to fund a bottle of this for himself
5 Likes
Thanks. Yes, I saw that. Fascinating prospect. Nice touch to use blue livery.
1 Like
Serge Valentin, the Robert Parker of whisky, recently gave some young Waterford distillate 90/100. Pretty much an unheard of scenario – and SV not generally keen on Irish drops. So… Waterford well on the way to becoming one of the world’s finest distilleries.
A much needed boost for the City.
Indeed. The whiskey tourism will become significant, I would say.
And is that place near the quay still going?
They used distil their own.
Downes- they blend their own whiskey. Downes no 9.
Downes’ is a wonderful pub. Pretty unique.
There are four excellent pubs, within 30 seconds of each other, near or on the Quay in Waterford: Downes’, Maher’s, Tully’s and An Uisce Beatha. I am heading down in the next while with a friend to do the Waterford Distillery tour. The plan involves, afterwards, having a drink in all four of them. He has never been in any of them.
Uisce Beatha is a new enough spot and I wouldn’t know it that well. I grew up in the other three. Tully’s used to be Donie McLoughlins. It was run by a curmudgeonly couple and frequented in the Main by curmudgeons, theatrical types (there is a theatre across the road) and gowlers. Of many memories of the place my standout one is of clarinetist Acker Bilk being held in a headlock by Liam Doyle who had a shop in Johns Park and was a sociopath who was telling Acker that he loved people. Donie died in Sheriff Graces pub in Ballybricken
Mahers was men only in my day. It was a rite of passage for teenagers in the town to get served there. There was every chance you’d be shown the door and best behavior was required. Tom Maher who was originally from Mooncoin kept a very well run house. He opened from 2-4, 5-7 and 8-10. He didn’t open “too early, too late or too long”. The house speciality was a whiskey Mac. Tom married late in life and the lads were ribbing him about the honeymoon. Toms answer was that he never knew you could have as much fun without laughing. Tom died 15 or 20 years ago and it passed to the wife and then the nephew. It is no longer men only, but the last time I was in there it was still well run.
Downes has always been a great pub. Owned by the De Bromhead family.
10 Likes
Great stuff… And the reason why fora can be good craic.
I could go on all night about those pubs.
Please do…
Uisce Beatha is a funky kind of place, with good beer and the sort of mixed clientele I like. Town heads and hip priests in the concord of good alcohol well served.
Maher’s has an excellent and quite unusual selection of whiskies. Tully’s has plenty of unusual beers and a strong whiskey range. But you know all that…
To be honest I’d rarely go into town for a drink now.
By the way, Dunnes currently have that four pack of 5ml pot still whiskey, including Barry Crockett Legacy, for €26 rather than for €36. I was in Lenehan’s pub last night for a funeral and I see they have BCL for €25.50 a 3.5ml shot. This price is not outrageous and only underscores bargain of the year.
I hear a few years back that T&H Doolans had closed, did it ever re-open?
A truly great afternoon drinking spot
Grand spot, back in the day. Still closed, alas.
Some crowd from Carlow bought it and when they were stripping it out they uncovered a well underneath it and they haven’t been able to do anything with it since.
That basically bankrupted the mcdonagh who owned the quays in Galway.
FFS. Would they not have left well enough alone.